Nevada's New Extreme Environments Laboratory

At the University of Nevada, Reno we are renovating nearly 20,000 square feet of lab and office space to develop a unique facility for exploring the extreme states of matter. We are driven by the need to better understand the impact of varying length and time-scale on dynamic material performance. We do not sufficiently understand the coupling of material features and structure to chemistry at extreme conditions, phase transition kinetics, heterogeneous material response, or plasticity. To address these gaps, we are installing two 40 mm single stage gas/powder guns, and two two-stage light gas guns, enabling us to explore the requisite range of stress states. To explore longer length and timescales, we are also developing a flash MeV radiographic source utilizing the Zebra pulsed power system, that can be coupled to a large-scale driver, enabling quantitative density measurements through large areal mass targets. Through these capabilities, we are training our students in hands-on experimental research and will be addressing long-standing questions about the impacts of mesoscale structure on material performance.